Tech

In a first for the L.A. rock group, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Californication” video has topped 1 billion views on YouTube. The music video for Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 2000 hit “Californication” — featuring shirtless bandmates Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith and John Frusciante and their avatars traversing a fictional open world video-game —

Many fans of Cody Ko and Noel Miller — aka the Tiny Meat Gang — know the two former Vine stars for their freewheeling YouTube video collabs. But the heart of their entrepreneurial endeavors lies in podcasting, and Ko and Miller’s fledgling Tiny Meat Gang Studios is aiming to plant a flag as a next-generation

The motley band of adventurers in Critical Role’s “The Legend of Vox Machina” on Prime Video will be joined by a few famous voices in Season 2. Henry Winkler, Lance Reddick and Cheech Marin will guest star in the second season of the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired adult animated series. Additional guest cast for Season 2

TikTok may be one of the foremost social media platforms in the world, but the service still remains relatively opaque for much of the international TV industry. At Singapore’s Asia TV Forum, TikTok’s global head of sports and gaming Harish Sarma tried to connect the dots between the platform’s audience and how producers and distributors

VidCon, the fan and industry event producer celebrating YouTubers and other digital creators, unveiled the first round of featured creators confirmed to its flagship convention in Anaheim, Calif., in June 2023. Creators scheduled to appear at the 12th annual event, to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center from June 21-24, 2023, include: Anthony Padilla,

BuzzFeed is axing 12% of its workforce, or around 180 staffers, in a bid to cut costs as the digital media company faces headwinds including an ad-spending pullback and the completion of its integration of Complex Media. “In order for BuzzFeed to weather an economic downturn that I believe will extend well into 2023, we

Lizzo was the Queen of TikTok this year, as millions of users learned the choreography for “About Damn Time” and engaged with her other songs and videos. TikTok users also pushed “Jiggle Jiggle” and the “It’s corn!” kid to the top viral trends on the app in the U.S. Lizzo, who has 26 million TikTok

Apple Podcasts released its year-end rankings of the top series, episodes and channels — with true-crime podcast publisher Audiochuck sitting at the top of several of the lists. Audiochuck, the Indianapolis-based network founded by Ashley Flowers (pictured above), was the top free channel on Apple Podcasts for the second year in a year. Its flagship

Howard Stern said during the Dec. 5 episode of his SiriusXM radio show that Kanye West has reached a level of antisemitism where it’s almost like he wants to be “a white man in the Nazi party.” It was Stern’s first show back since West had an antisemitic meltdown on Alex Jones’ “Infowars” talk show.

“What is your next move, Jedi?” Followers of Cal Kestis’ epic journey in a galaxy far, far away will finally get a taste of “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” in action this week.  Respawn Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Lucasfilm Games will debut the official gameplay trailer for the highly-anticipated entry in the series at the Game Awards

Jay Shetty is embarking on his first world tour, Variety has learned exclusively. The bestselling author, podcast host, social media sensation, life coach and former monk has announced tour dates for “Jay Shetty: Love Rules” in 2023. The tour is described as a 90-minute experience where Shetty will lead the audience through live meditations, experiments

Warner Music Group has punched its way into the free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) segment, with the launch of a trio of genre-based channels exclusively on the Roku Channel. The new channels from the music company — WMX Pop, WMX Rock and WMX Hip-Hop — are now available to stream for free on the Roku

“Better late than never,” Dolly Parton tweeted with a wink Sunday in announcing that she had joined TikTok The 11-time Grammy winner debuted her TikTok profile, @DollyParton, and released “Berry Pie,” a Holiday baking ditty drawing from traditional bluegrass styles, exclusively on TikTok as a sound for fans to use in their own videos. Her

Panellists at influencer convention CreatorWorld outlined four major shifts happening in the online video space in recent years. CreatorWorld is held under the umbrella of the Singapore Media Festival. Niche content is becoming more successful. Creators who create specific niche content will have a big opportunity to break out, according to Alex Dwek of Nas

Noodle, an elderly dog that found a huge following on TikTok for predicting whether it would be a “bones” or “no bones” day, died Friday evening, his owner announced. Jonathan Graziano, the owner of Noodle, shared the news through TikTok, along with a tribute to his beloved pug. “I’m so sorry to have to share

Two years after the fact, Elon Musk — Twitter’s megabillionaire new owner — promoted the release of documents showing the company’s internal deliberations about blocking the New York Post’s account over its reporting on Hunter Biden. The new disclosures, touted as “The Twitter Files,” were posted in a lengthy Twitter thread by investigative reporter and

It’s a business of authenticity and ingenuity, populated with born entrepreneurs, talented artisans and experienced business owners. The growing marketplace for unscripted TV related to food, home, design, beauty, health, wellness and related subjects was the focus of Variety’s inaugural Lifestyle Leaders breakfast gathering featuring conversations with “Property Brothers” stars Drew and Jonathan Scott and

Elon Musk kicked Kanye West off Twitter after the rapper-entrepreneur tweeted an image of a Nazi swastika embedded inside the Star of David. Musk, the mega-billionaire who bought Twitter about a month ago, said late Thursday that West’s account was suspended for “incitement to violence.” West’s boot from Twitter, where he had more than 32

While video-based platforms like TikTok and YouTube hogged most of the attention and optimism at influencer convention CreatorWorld, industry insiders had wildly differing views instead on the future of Twitter, the embattled social news service. Alex Dwek of Nas Company is betting on the outsized personality of Twitter boss Elon Musk, and the nature of

Re-editing and repackaging old library material for short form distribution on YouTube or TikTok can extend its life and value for years, according to industry insiders at influencer convention CreatorWorld, part of the Singapore Media Festival. Steve Crombie discussed how his company Totem Networks, re-edited and repackaged clips from “Baywatch”-style Australian reality show “Bondi Rescue,”

The Western genre has seen a major boom in popularity recently, led in large part by the phenomenally successful TV series “Yellowstone,” and its spin-off “1883.” Yet while the juicy adventures of the Dutton family are no doubt spurring (ahem) much of the current interest in cowboys and horses, plenty of other Westerns are finding

Almost two years after Discovery+ debuted, the nonfiction streaming service is now available on DirecTV’s satellite and online platforms. Under the pact reached between Warner Bros. Discovery and DirecTV, customers of DirecTV and DirecTV Stream can now subscribe to Discovery+ to access its lineup of more than 70,000 episodes of original series and library content

Saudi-owned MBC Group, which is the top broadcaster in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), is boosting anime offerings on its Shahid streaming platform by ordering up a slew of new content from several Japanese studios. Reflecting a strong appetite for anime across the region – especially in Saudi, where Toei Animation’s “One Piece

The top-trending U.S. video on YouTube this year was late gaming creator Technoblade’s posthumous message to fans, while MrBeast scored as the YouTuber with the biggest subscriber gains in 2022. YouTube on Thursday announced its year-end top 10 trending videos, creators and songs in the U.S., as well as the top ads globally. No. 1

Elon Musk said he was mistaken that Apple “threatened” to suspend Twitter from the App Store, claiming he met with Apple CEO Tim Cook and cleared the air over the issue. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted, “Thanks @tim_cook for taking me around Apple’s beautiful HQ” in Cupertino, Calif., along with a 4-second video of a pond.

Issa Rae’s Hoorae Media has announced the participants of the inaugural Black & Unlimited Digital Development Program in partnership with Walmart. The selected creators for the program include Alex Hill, Amanda S. Wicks, Archie Jay, Brelynn Hunt, Cam Sullivan-Brown, Destiny Aaiyana, Mariah Jae, Chef Shaiheem and Tyris Winter. “Hoorae is proud to partner with Walmart

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who has been under fire for the ecommerce giant’s continuing to sell an antisemitic book and movie, declined to say whether the company would remove them after the backlash. Jassy, speaking Wednesday at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit, sidestepped the question of whether Amazon would continue to sell “Hebrews to

Audible, Amazon’s premium audiobook and podcast platform, announced that Susan Jurevics will now oversee the development and execution of the company’s global brand strategy in addition to leading its international teams. Jurevics, as chief brand and international officer, will continue to report to Audible CEO Bob Carrigan. Jurevics joined Audible in 2019 as VP and

Love him or hate him, Joe Rogan maintained his hold as the No. 1 podcaster on Spotify for 2022. “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which has been exclusively available on Spotify since December 2020, took the No. 1 slot for most popular podcast of the year globally and in the U.S., for the second year in

Disney now owns 100% of BAMTech, the streaming technology services group that powers Disney+ and the media company’s other direct-to-consumer services. Earlier this month, Disney paid $900 million to Major League Baseball to buy out the league’s remaining 15% stake in BAMTech, the media conglomerate disclosed in an SEC filing Tuesday. In 2016, Disney made